Nanophase expert shares big picture at symposium

Inorganic chemistry professor Charles Gibson of the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh will present “Advancing the Promise of Solid State Lighting” at the Wisconsin Science and Technology Symposium July 17 and 18 at UW-Stout.

Gibson studies nanophase materials, which have a grain size in the 1 to 100 nanometer range. His research centers on synthesizing and studying the properties of new nanophase phosphors with the goal of developing improved phosphors for solid-state lighting devices.

At the symposium, he will give a progress report on the synthesis of new nanophase phosphors and discuss some of their properties.

Gibson has received two patents for his work with nanophase materials.

The Wisconsin Science Symposium brings together the most innovative researchers in Wisconsin along with key technology entrepreneurs and investors.

3 Comments

Rick Hillman
on July 16, 2008 at 11:54 am

Is nanotechnology a field that undergraduate students can study? What about at UW Oshkosh?

Jennifer Mihalick
on July 17, 2008 at 7:57 am

Nanotechnology is an area studied by chemists, physicists, and materials scientists, occasionally overlapping with biology (imitating biological molecules or designing nanomaterials that can interact with biological samples). Dr. Gibson has had quite a few undergraduates work in his research laboratory on creating nanophase materials.

Charles Gibson
on July 19, 2008 at 12:12 pm

Hi Rick, thanks for the question.
Nanotechnology is very definitely a field that can be taught to undergraduate students. I think this is really important because nanotech will revolutionize the way our students live by producing advanced materials for consumer electronics, devices to produce and store energy, implantable medical devices, and much more.

The basic concepts of nanotech definitely could be taught in a 100-level gen.ed. course, and there are currently a few chemistry/physics departments in the US that do just that. In order to formally train scientists (i.e., nanotech major/minor), we would need to add several “hard science” nanotech courses, which would be comparable in difficulty to some of the chemistry and physics courses that we already offer.

The big problem is that is that nanotech a relatively new and non-traditional field, which means that we don’t currently have the “critical mass” of nanotech expertise at UW-Oshkosh to offer a formal program of instruction. Also, with the recent rounds of budget-cutting, it’s hard to see how we can find the money to add these new courses even if we did have the critical mass expertise.

On the bright side, I think that the Chancellor and other UWO administrators have taken an important step to bring nanotech expertise and resources to UWO. My understanding is that one of the positions associated with the next phase of the Chancellor’s growth agenda is slated to be filled by a nanotech expert (in Chemistry). This new position will be very helpful in developing nanotech curriculum and research at UWO. While I am very happy for this support, I should point out that UW-Platteville, UW-Eau Claire, and UW-Stout are several years ahead on us in the development of nanotech curriculum/research, and I am concerned because our late start puts us at a disadvantage when we look for resources to support nanotech.

In the mean time, I am working with a group of nanotech experts from other UW campuses to combine resources so that we can teach nanotech to undergraduates. We are in the very early stages of discussion, but our current plans include distance ed instruction (including an intro gen ed course, and advanced courses for science majors), and providing nanotech research opportunities for undergraduates. And, of course, we are looking for ways to pay for this.